Are women raped in Taliban prisons?

Nearly three years have passed since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan. In that time, women have become prisoners in their own homes and face violence when they venture outside alone.

The United Nations is currently investigating reports of rape, gang rape, sex slavery and forced abortions of women in Taliban prisons.

The reports, first published in a respected Afghan media outlet, are the first detailed accounts of systematic sexual abuse of women by Taliban members and commanders.

The reports raised concerns among the US State Department and the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, Richard Bennett, who immediately launched an investigation.

Bennett said the report published in May by Hasht-e-Subh daily (known as 8AM), which describes the shocking treatment of women held in squalid quarters and detained for months without legal representation or access to their families, may have revealed a new extreme of abuse. 8AM won an Emmy Award for New York Times in 2023 to investigate Taliban atrocities.

The report contains such gruesome accounts of physical and sexual abuse and arbitrary killings of detained women in three northern provinces that independent investigations are needed, Bennett said. The audience.

“We are taking this seriously, we have a team looking into it to see if we can verify it,” Bennett said. “In general, I am aware of serious abuse of prisoners, not only of a sexual nature, but also beatings, threats and blackmail.”

The report, titled “From torture to sexual abuse and murder: What is happening in Taliban women’s prisons?”, says 90 women were raped in prisons in Samangan, Jawzjan and Faryab provinces by Taliban fighters who took over security at night after female guards, cleaners and medical staff had finished their day shifts.

It is alleged that high-ranking and low-ranking Taliban members entered the prisons at night to sexually abuse the women. Women were also taken to the homes of Taliban commanders, where they were sexually abused and returned to prison at daybreak.

Sixteen of the women became pregnant after “multiple sexual assaults and sought abortions at local clinics,” the report said. The women were brought to the hospital under armed guard by the Taliban and kept separate from other patients and most medical staff during the abortions, which usually took place in the third or fifth month of pregnancy, it said. The information was attributed to unnamed “prisoners who suffered abuse.”

“A released prisoner confirmed that at least four female prisoners in Samangan province became seriously ill as a result of repeated sexual assaults by Taliban members and were eventually executed by the Taliban,” the report said.

In addition, a doctor at a hospital in Maymana, the provincial capital of Faryab, was quoted as saying: “The Taliban took 13 female prisoners to the gynecology department … after sexually abusing them, and these women were subjected to abortions.” Several women were admitted to the hospital with bleeding from sexual abuse and signs of torture, another doctor said.

Bennett has visited Afghanistan several times since the collapse of the republic’s government and has published reports of human rights abuses, which the Taliban leadership denies. He has described Afghanistan as lawless.

He expressed suspicion that the prisons in the 8 a.m. report were privately run by the General Directorate of Intelligence, the Taliban’s intelligence agency, or by regional commanders, thus exempting them from the authority of the prison administration, which he described as “less worrying.”

Women’s rights activists have long warned that women and girls face horrific abuses under the Taliban’s autarkic regime.

In the final months of the war in 2021, as the Taliban stormed to victory, reports of horrific treatment, including forced marriages amounting to sex slavery, emerged in the regions they had conquered.

A recent series of reports from the George W. Bush Institute entitled “Captured State” states: “The Taliban also use wife recruitment – ​​often through violence and by exploiting family desperation – to collect debts or secure the support of loyalists.”

When the Taliban regained control of the country on August 15, 2021, they immediately began dismantling the constitutional human rights protections that the Western-backed government had created to protect women from abuse and which are now enforced as state policy.

Women who demanded protection of their rights were beaten in the streets, and many of the women detained in the weeks and months after the Taliban took power reported being subjected to brutal beatings and sexual assault.

Many women are reluctant to speak about their ordeals, even if they remain anonymous, so there is little hard evidence of Taliban brutality. There is still a cultural expectation of chastity in the country, and any sexual contact outside of marriage is considered shameful. In some communities, there is also a tradition of blaming the female victims.

Lack of education about sexuality can lead to many women not understanding what has happened to them. Many fear that revealing they have been sexually abused will bring shame on their family and prevent them from getting married. Several women who initially promised to talk about their experiences have later withdrawn their wish.

As a result, investigators like Bennett and other nongovernmental organizations have collected anecdotal and hearsay accounts of disturbing abuses for which there is little solid evidence. Although the 8AM report has yet to be independently verified, the allegations do not surprise some experts.

Heather Barr, deputy director of the women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch, said the Taliban view women as property that requires constant monitoring to ensure they behave “decently” and do not dishonor male relatives. Misbehavior – such as leaving the house alone, protesting against violations of their rights or seeking an education or career – is seen as justifiably punished by the Taliban, and in the Taliban worldview, “they deserve it,” she said.

It is unlikely that the Taliban’s treatment of women will have any consequences. International aid, including tens of millions of dollars in cash, continues to flow into the country. The Taliban cannot stop their systematic repression.

Supreme leader Haibatullah Arkhundzada has reintroduced execution by stoning and mocks human rights activists: “They say it is a violation of women’s rights if we stone them to death. But we will soon introduce the punishment for adultery.”

With wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East, attention has largely turned away from Afghanistan. The Taliban are not recognized as a legitimate government but enjoy the tacit support of Russia, China and other countries such as Japan and Turkey, which have ambassadors in Kabul. Kazakhstan has just removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations, and Russia is said to be moving in that direction.

There are concerns that the US may seek recognition or at least reopen its embassy in Kabul. In response, Afghan women’s rights groups have called for a boycott of a meeting organised by the United Nations in Doha, Qatar, in July to encourage the Taliban to engage with the international community.

The Taliban declined to attend a similar meeting in February but confirmed their attendance at the upcoming meeting. Their participation is unlikely to improve conditions for women in this economic and humanitarian state of emergency.

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